64 in 64: Episode 52—Plats All, Folks! Part Four
by mento
This special season of 64 in 64 has one last pair of N64 games to tide you over until autumn: we're looking at the deceptively clever Chameleon Twist and yet another Looney Tunes tie-in, Duck Dodgers Starring Daffy Duck.
And so we (temporarily) wrap up this half-season of 64 in 64 with another two games, the first of which is one I'd been meaning to cover since I started doing all this some four years ago and change. Some part of me wants to carry this momentum forward once the second half is over (due this September, just in time for the 30th anniversary of the N64's launch in the States) into other consoles of this era and their own inchoate attempts with 3D platforming and collectathons: the PlayStation, with Croc, Crash, Spyro, and Jumping Flash, or Saturn with... I think it's just Bug!, right? Did they do any others? I guess Croc got a port. Either way, if I cross-pollinate those ranking lists with the N64 I wonder how dominant Nintendo's system truly is in this space: I can't foresee anything toppling Super Mario 64 from the apex, but the rest of the table shouldn't be quite as secure if I had to guess.
Anyway, let's put a pin in that for now since I still have eight more maybe not-great 3D platformers to put me off the idea entirely come the start of autumn, plus the two we're covering today. For the sake of preserving some of this draconian character limit I won't go through the full rule set again but here's the abbreviated version:
Two games. 64 minutes each. Quarter-length vibe reports. A rundown of their history,their subjective longevity, their estimated likelihood for conservation in the NSO library, and a RetroAchievements appraisal if indeed the games are even supported. All games are randomly drawn from a pool of the remaining 3D platformers, with some caveats (originals go before sequels, is mostly the only one).
If you'd like to get all caught up with this season, here's some links: Part One, Part Two, Part Three. For other 3D platformers that I've reviewed so far in 64 in 64, check the ranking table at the end for where to find those.
Let's get to it, starting with a powerful(ly gross) tongue:
PAF#7: Chameleon Twist
Japan System Supply / Japan System Supply (JP) + Sunsoft (NA/EU)
1997-11-30 (NA), 1997-12-06 (EU), 1997-12-12 (JP)
=57th N64 Game Released
History: Chameleon Twist has you play as a chameleon who takes on a humanoid form after falling into a rabbit hole to a Wonderland-esque destination, where he then seeks a way back home through several worlds. Rather than play into the chameleon's ability to blend in with its environment, which is typically the first and only thing you think of when you consider a chameleon's distinct strengths, the game instead has you work a prehensile tongue around to capture (and eat) enemies, acquire collectibles, and latch onto posts to either pull yourself toward them or use them as anchors to swing yourself around. Though only a mild success it was enough to receive a sequel, Chameleon Twist 2, which came out just a year later.
Japan System Supply was an Osaka-based company that largely kept to home computers—they developed the first Japanese MMO for PC, Lifestorm, along with its sequel and also worked on several FM Towns games—but dabbled occasionally in consoles. Their console output includes the unreleased Virtual Boy game Bound High (the prototype of which has since been leaked onto the internet), the Custom Robo-esque Power Quest for GBC, and they had some involvement with Phantasy Star Gaiden for Game Gear. While the Chameleon Twist duo are their only N64 games, they did have something called Cavalry Battle 3000 in the works which, despite the name, looked like a motorcycle racing game. (Maybe the name was influenced by the steel horse of Bon Jovi's Wanted Dead or Alive?) Sunsoft, the game's North American and European publisher, probably doesn't need an introduction and given their parent company's apparent involvement with some truly diabolical tech maybe they don't deserve one either. Like JSS, their only N64 games are Chameleon Twist and its sequel, though on a N64-related note Sunsoft did publish the GBC Quest 64 port, Quest: Brian's Journey.
Of the three-dozen games in my personal N64 collection, Chameleon Twist was one of the few that I never got around to covering during those first 48 episodes despite always having it on the backburner. It's not what I could call the system's best by any stretch (of the tongue) (OK, that was a stretch) but I always appreciated that it had one dumb idea and took it as far as it could; it reminds me of ambitious 3D Indie games that stick to a handful of mechanics out of budgetary necessity. I've also never played its sequel before, so that'll be something to look forward to when I revisit this feature later this year. Kind of a known quantity on my side but it's been a while so maybe I'll get to discover just how well/poorly it has held up.
16 Minutes In
Here I am posting another article on Bomb Land. Fred here perfectly captures my energy right now in this 30°C+ weather.
This game still slaps, it turns out. I needn't have worried. While it's visually perhaps one of the crudest looking games on the N64 (though one simple enough that its draw distance doesn't demand the notorious Fog o' Obfuscation) the soundtrack is as hoppy and fun as I remember it being and the controls came back to me in a flash. I've completed the first world, Jungle Land, which involved about twenty or so rooms with some combination of platforming and combat challenges and ended with a boss fight against a weird looking gorilla with shounen protagonist hair (if you know, you know). I got about a minute into the next world, Ant Land, which is full of ants and other bugs. Hey, guess what chameleons eat?
I'm surprised by how quickly I got back into the swing and/or twist of things here. The tongue can be used to snake around and collect items (it won't work on the crowns though; the game's sole entirely superfluous collectible) and the whole hooking to an object or using it to swing around is pretty intuitive too, once you know how it works. It even has this thing where if you remember to send the tongue out slightly to the left or right first it'll swing you in that direction once it's hooked onto a post. There's also a pole vault mechanic with the Z-button that lets you reach greater heights, either by launching off a tongue handstand (a tonguestand? Seems painful either way) or by building up speed to vault yourself forward. Through a combination of these techniques and some real ancient residual memories, I was able to clear the first world and grab all its collectibles in a single attempt. I'm guessing it won't go quite as smoothly with these five other worlds though.
32 Minutes In
The Ant Queen is by far the most annoying boss in the game, largely because your opportunities to damage her are few and far between.
This block was all Ant Land and emphasized the post-swing technique, since a few enemies (including the boss) could only be damaged by tripping them up first, Hoth speeder style. Much more combat focused than the first world though with a few tricky platforming sequences, especially if you wanted all the crowns, it almost felt more like a Zelda map between the interior location and how frequently the goal to progress was to kill everything in the room (which made the rooms with endlessly spawning enemies a bit confusing). The Ant Queen boss was tougher than the ape, for sure: it involved first tripping her then hitting her with her own subjects. After that she span her ass around the arena for a while before resetting the pattern, spawning more enemies to roam around while you were focused on what the queen was doing. Five whole cycles of that seems overkill but then there's no law that says every N64 exclusive needs to follow Nintendo's Rule of Three.
Something I appreciate about the way this game goes about presenting its enemies—the protagonist and the bosses are polygonal, while everything else is a 2D sprite permanently facing the camera a la the original Doom—is that it allows the game to throw dozens of foes on the screen at once with no drawbacks, which makes it all the more satisfying to hoover a vast number of them up in one go and spit them out at any enemy left standing. That each level is a series of small rooms probably helps with the ol' memory too.
48 Minutes In
The citizens here are clearly trying to send me a message, but what could it mean?
Conveniently, all these worlds seem to be around 15 minutes apiece if you're taking your time looking for collectibles (and when am I ever not when playing a 3D platformer? Or really anything?). Bomb Land not only had a cool aesthetic, tapping into Bomberman's sci-fi pyrotechnics, but possibly the best BGM so far in what's proven to be a shockingly close race. Bomb World is mostly about how best to use projectiles, specifically the type you spit out after swallowing them, where most of the normal torpedo enemies can be shot out to damage the otherwise indestructible walking grenades and these big blocks that either conceal switches or need to be brought down a few layers so you can jump across them. The boss, a giant snake made of metal spheres that drops bombs everywhere, is your classic segmented boss fight: you have to hit the parts between the invincible head and tail and it gets smaller (and thus harder to hit) and faster every time. Not nearly as much waiting around as the Ant Queen boss and still more challenging than the ape (which took all of ten seconds to defeat), so it's my new favorite for now.
Probably bodes well that each new world has been more enjoyable than the last, huh? Sometimes you forget what joy feels like in a series like this (as Jeff Gerstmann will soon no doubt discover when he starts ranking these things). Did I mention Chameleon Twist has infinite lives? For as much as it trivializes the game, it certainly makes it way less painful too. Definitely the right call.
64 Minutes In
Well this is a whole lot of hell the fuck no.
Desert Castle was next and you know the game's getting serious when they've upgraded from Lands to Castles. While more linear than the others—this world is practically a 2D platformer—the challenge level was considerably higher here, with plenty of high jumps, pole vaults, and post-spins required to get through its gauntlet of traps and bottomless pits. There were also long stretches with clashing walls of spikes which, combined with the Arabian theme, made me wonder if this level wasn't partly inspired by the original Prince of Persia. I suspect the idea with those was to use the tongue-stand to put yourself above them out of harm's way briefly as they smashed together, though I could never get the timing down and just damage-boosted through. I also didn't quite reach the boss of this stage, so it's a bit longer than the others as well, though I must've been close as I had almost all the stage's crowns when the timer sounded.
Having just passed the game's halfway mark I'm going to go out on a limb and say Chameleon Twist is perhaps on the shorter side—one of its chief criticisms at the time, I believe—but I was still enjoying it and the uptick in difficulty was of course greatly ameliorated by how generous the checkpointing is and how often they throw healing items at you. I only ever died in boss fights and that's only because, like the fool I am, I was going after the no-damage achievements since I was already passing through and all. Less a brag, more an indication of where this game's heart is at: I suspect many early 3D platformers erred on the easy side given this was all new tech that both developers and players had to learn. It's possible the second game will take the training wheels off, but for now I'm all chameleoned out.
How Well Has It Aged?: Tongue Impressor. I'm not sure what kind of expectations I had going in since it'd been a while since I played it and the game's not the most well-regarded of the N64's tenure, but I really enjoyed what they had here. Much of it is kind of surface-level in terms of variation and difficulty but at the same time it flows well, gives you plenty of optional challenges by way of its crown collectibles, is incredibly fair to what feels like a modern standard of QoL observance, and for as much as the visuals didn't wow me the music made up for it by how energetic it was. If the sequel's an improvement we might be looking at a top ten game; not just for this 3D platformers-only list but potentially overall.
Chance of Switch Online Inclusion: Hold Your Tongue. Sunsoft has been a wildcard of late given they've been on Steam dropping ports, remasters, and sequels to their older games (including, bizarrely, the City Hunter PCE game that was the subject of the first ever Game OVA episode; coming back real soon). Assuming they still have the rights to publish this game, I could see them either giving the Chameleon Twist duology the same Steam treatment or else negotiating for their inclusion on NSO. If the rights disappeared with JSS though, I've no idea if these unlucky lickers have any shot at a revival.
Retro Achievements Earned: 11 (of 32). Standard story progression and full collectible sets are in here, of course, along with those no-damage boss clears I mentioned (you can restart a boss fight as often as you'd like by dying, so they're not too bad in this case), but the rest are very time-trial focused. I guess with a game this short players are inclined to try to speedrun; encouraged to some degree by an in-game time tracker. The hardest, looking at the comments and sorting by "# of unlocks", are time-trials focused on completing the tutorial rooms within seconds. Something perverse about turning the tutorials into the most challenging battlefield.
PAF#8: Looney Tunes: Duck Dodgers Starring Daffy Duck
2000-09-16 (NA), 2000-10-27 (EU)
341st N64 Game Released
History: Looney Tunes: Duck Dodgers Starring Daffy Duck is, following previous case file Taz Express, the second Looney Tunes game to be released on N64 and sees regular LT player Daffy Duck assume his Duck Dodgers sci-fi persona (a parody of Buck Rogers in the 25th Century, which itself saw a Mega Drive game) for an interplanetary adventure that also features perennial nemesis of Earth Marvin the Martian and Dodgers's stalwart (and often more competent) companion, The Eager Young Space Cadet ("played" by Porky Pig). Exclusively released on the N64, the game largely follows the collectathon blueprint set by Super Mario 64 but also includes first-person sections and mini-games for variety.
Infogrames put their temporary ownership of the video game license for Looney Tunes to work, producing two games in short order (they were released weeks apart) through two separate contract developers. We talked about the erstwhile Infogrames (now Atari SA) last time but they seem to have recently become a positive force for the retro gaming internet, at least through their subsidiaries Digital Eclipse and Nightdive. Paradigm Entertainment has an interesting backstory: they were computer graphics specialists that pioneered some 3D polygonal tech that drew the eye of Nintendo, who then tapped them to help with the more flight-simmy aspects of the N64 launch game Pilotwings 64 much like they did with Argonaut Games and Star Fox in the generation prior. Paradigm stuck around for several more N64 games, most of which were racers (including the much loved, by Grubb at least, Beetle Adventure Racing) and continued to make games into the late '00s before they were shut down by their parent company, which at the time was THQ but had previously been Atari SA (who actually bought them just before this game launched).
I actually have two duck platformers to check out so I'm curious to see which is better, black duck or white duck. Given the last Looney Tunes game, which I covered in just the previous episode, my expectations aren't incredibly high but neither are they rock bottom. I will say that I'm less eager about revisiting the Looney Tunes version of Mars again, given how swampy and lasery the version in Taz Express was, but maybe Duck Dodgers will have better controls and no freight cargo to lug around. Can't say I have much history with the Duck Dodgers license in particular: I know that some time after this game it saw a TV show but I couldn't tell you if the popularity, if any, of this game helped make that happen. Maybe '00s kids were just really into parodies of 1930s adventure serials, or 1970s TV adaptations of same, or maybe the Gold Box RPG I mentioned earlier. All seem like long shots to me. Talking of long shots, let's find out if this game is any good.
16 Minutes In
Not stoked about the minecarts (a little too DKC for me) but at least that looks like regular water instead of yellow slime.
Maybe famous last words but this doesn't seem too bad so far, though I can definitely see room for improvement. The first block here included the introductory cutscene (where the subtitles ran too fast for the dialogue; potentially an emulator-exclusive issue) and then we were off to the space races. Game sort of functions the same way as Chameleon Twist, coincidentally enough: each "world" is comprised of multiple smaller areas with a handful of collectibles each and a set of obstacles to overcome, which for this first Duck Dodgers world largely involves evading (or dodging, if you will) minecarts whizzing around at great speed. The game helpfully points out how many of the story-critical collectibles, atoms, can be found in each of these areas as soon as you enter (so far it's either been one or two) and while I'm fairly sure you don't need all of them to progress, you get a little jingle after collecting the last in any given area to let you know you can move on if you're the completionist type. I've since circled around back to this planet's hub area where a new path has opened up and I got the prompt to save my progress, so I imagine the rest of the game is built in a similar fashion to give players a reprieve and make it easier to backtrack for anything missed.
Duck Dodgers starts with a double-jump, which seems fairly rare for this era, though the second hop doesn't give you a whole lot of extra air and mostly serves to help correct your descent. Air control's not bad though the attack is kinda weak and very short-ranged, so I'm hoping boss fights boil down to using environmental objects to cause damage. The game does an odd thing where you can ground-pound by attacking while in mid-air; the Z-button doesn't appear to do anything. Other odd choices include fall damage, which not only hurts Dodgers but causes him to be dizzy for a while which means you can only walk around slowly, and a secondary collectible—blue spiky things called quarks—that heal one pip of damage (like SM64 coins) and can give you an extra life with every 50 of them (also like SM64 coins). The quarks' healing factor is generous but it also means you have to be careful not to collect all of them if you're working towards a hard-to-reach atom.
32 Minutes In
Duck Dodgers understood that the SM64 ground pound wasn't just an effective means of attack but a vital way to hit the brakes while in mid-air. Nowhere is that more important than when you're using these Acme rockets to fly around in a hurry.
This stretch of the game had me loop once again back to the hub after introducing usable items (which is where the Z button comes in): the first of these is a rocket pack that blasts you far in one direction before fizzling out, though you have some small amount of air control to change directions. I lost a few lives here from the bottomless pits as I tried to reach various highly- or precariously-paced atoms but given how easy it is to regain lives I'm wondering if I should try to avoid any game overs or just roll with it given how often it lets me save my progress. I also got a bonus 1-Up from Lola Bunny, whom I guess was still a recent fixture following the semi-recent Space Jam (and also because there weren't previously any female characters in the main Looney Tunes stable, beyond the fembird Tweety and the genderfluid Bugs); I'll be meeting her on future planets for similar handouts. The block ended as I approached the palace of a guy named Hassan, who looks to be the first boss: I'm guessing Marvin managed to convince him that his organization was pro-Palestine (though Marvin is very much anti-Earth, and Palestine is on Earth, so that might get awkward).
We're getting to the stage of the game where I'm needing to do more precise platforming and the air control and double-jump isn't helping as much as I would like it to. The camera's also noticeably bad, even for a 3D platformer of this vintage, so I'm trying not to rely on it too much. Fortunately, most of this planet has been larger open areas where the camera can just sit in a corner somewhere and behave itself but in places like the underground mine cart tunnel network you do find the camera failing you quite often as you navigate tight spaces. Hopefully they had enough sense to not make too many narrow areas in future levels. Dodgers can also swim (which makes sense, seeing as he's a duck) and the controls underwater are reminiscent of SM64, especially in how you have two "speeds" and one of them is way too slow to bother with. Unlike Mario, Duck Dodgers doesn't need oxygen so I foresee some entirely aquatic areas later. Wouldn't make sense to implement swimming controls if the occasional pool was all I ever encountered.
48 Minutes In
No, don't worry, you've helped plenty Talking Chest. I think the planet's ammonia fumes are getting to me.
Perfect timing with what I said about the camera, as Hassan's palace was full of thin corridors laden with traps. Flying carpets over spikes, spinning spike logs, and enemies ready to slap you directly into the nearest sharpest part of the level, and the camera wasn't so much a wingman here as it is in league with Team Traps seeing how unhelpful it was being. Once I made it to the top floor where Hassan was waiting, I had one more corridor where the floor fell away into an instant death trap, so: A) thanks for that, asshole and, B) I'm on the top floor here, where are these pits going if not the floor below? At any rate, the boss itself wasn't so bad: I just had to avoid him until he stunned himself with a big flamboyant attack and then deliver a kick in his vulnerable state. What was weird is that the graphic used for the boss's health—a tiny capsule-shaped gauge at the bottom of the screen with five pips—was almost identical to the one used for Chameleon Twist's bosses. Odd the coincidences you find when you play two otherwise disparate games back to back. Next planet looks to be a... modern metropolis? Ruled by that tiny Mafia guy with the big hat? I'll take that over more minecarts I guess.
The flaws of this game are getting to me, I'll admit, though I did find out what happened if you lose all your lives (not much; just have to walk back to where you were from the hub area) and, really, the game's generosity in that regard is making it more palatable than it otherwise sounds. Breaking up the worlds into tiny areas with their own small collectible counts is one of those serendipitous game design things—where technical limitations meets benevolent user experience—that I'm sad went away once these games figured out how to make giant areas without too much slowdown and an all-enveloping fog to mask the poor draw distances. Then again, I kinda prefer this genre when I can explore a little and not just stick to a linear course. It's nice too how you keep circling back around to the hub where you can save and have a new checkpoint of sorts to rely on. Much like Taz Express, it doesn't play all that hot but there's some ideas here that raise it above pure mediocrity.
64 Minutes In
See? The N64 did have its own Punch-Out!! after all.
Gangster planet's hub area had a few bonus areas in addition to the main level sets, including an arcade (where you can play a miserable version of Pong for an atom), a basketball court (that has a free throw mini-game that's also pretty miserable), and a boxing match (guess what? This one kinda sucked too). The last exit in the hub area had a guy demanding you find at least 12 atoms, since that means you're part of the crew running things (I guess?), so I suppose these bonus areas are here to help those who struggled to find enough in the normal levels. Either way, I spent this remaining block of time in those mini-game areas and completely forgot to check out the actual levels, so I guess gangster planet will have to remain a mystery for now.
I won't say these mini-games completely soured my impression of the game, given they seem to be optional, but they didn't really do much to improve it either. I think Duck Dodgers is essentially fine but falls a ways short of the system's best. I neglected to mention that Daff- uh, Duck Dodgers quips about as much as Gex does but it's almost all that ironic mix of self-aggrandizing rhetoric, anger, and overt cowardice that the Looney Tunes duck is best known for and thus not really as irksome as other mascot platformer heroes who don't have extensive backgrounds acting in the animated arts to justify how cocky they are.
How Well Has It Aged?: It Feels Old as Duck. This one hasn't held up so well, but only in mechanical terms. Philosophically it's got some generous QoL conceits that are occasionally even ahead of their time, and I can't argue it doesn't use the license well given all the obscure Looney Tunes villains it managed to summon for a rogue's gallery of bosses (all of whom I've seen in cartoons previously, except maybe the slightly outdated stereotype Hassan). If you gotta play a B-tier 3D platformer for the system I'm sure this is far from the worst one, even if it's fundamentally a bit jank.
Chance of Switch Online Inclusion: Ducking the Question. Maybe it'd be quicker to only write something here when the game in question doesn't involve a popular and still active license that someone's going to want a mint for rereleasing in any fashion, and given how Warner Bros.-Discovery-HBO-Extended Fart Noise is being run these days I wouldn't want to be the Nintendo lawyer sent out to negotiate.
Retro Achievements Earned: 9 (of 37). Usual suspects here: Story progression, full collectible sets, and some no-damage boss attempts. Dying in a boss fight resets the achievement attempt and losing all lives simply means a small-to-medium-sized stroll back to where the boss was thanks to the game's hub checkpointing system so it's not too rough, in the same way a cavity filling isn't as rough as a root canal. The rest involve finding 1-Ups: you can unlock most of these through mini-games and Lola. Nothing too annoying here, at least beyond what the game already throws at you.
And that's all the N64ing you're going to get from me this month. Soon, though, on the back half of this Very Special "Plats All, Folks" season: I've still got a bear, a bird, a cat, a dog, a bug, a worm, a duck, a chameleon, and a buncha babies. Nothing a couple cans of Raid won't fix! Wakka wakka!
Current Ranking (3D Platformers only)
*NEW* Chameleon Twist (Ep. 52/PAF 4)
*NEW* Looney Tunes: Duck Dodgers Starring Daffy Duck (Ep. 52/PAF 4)
Looney Tunes: Taz Express (Ep. 51/PAF 3)
Carnivale: Cenzo's Adventure (Ep. 49/PAF 1)